Silicon Valley, August 26, 2002 - The Association of Energy Engineers’ (AEE) local Silicon Valley chapter recently honored Jerry Meek, Roche Bioscience utilities manager, as the Energy Manager of the Year for the western states. In addition, four other San Francisco Bay Area professionals were recognized with regional awards for outstanding accomplishments in promoting the practices and principles of energy management and development.
Now in its 25th year, the AEE's main objective is to award distinguished colleagues and businesses for their successful efforts in energy related fields. This year’s award winners ranged from Dr. Gilbert Masters, a Stanford professor who teaches classes on energy conservation, to Mr. Meek, who manages utilities for the 1,000 employee Roche pharmaceutical R&D facility in Palo Alto.
"This was an important year for this awards program and we had a tough time choosing winners," says Virginia Waik, AEE vice president for Region V and local AEE Silicon Valley chapter advisor. "The California energy crisis encouraged engineers and managers to pursue creative electric demand and conservation projects. We're hoping that recognition for these outstanding programs will inspire others to conserve.”
The winners included:
Jerry Meek, Roche Bioscience – Palo Alto
AEE Region V Award for Energy Manager of the Year for Seven Western States
Jerry Meek, utilities manager at Roche Bioscience, was chosen among professionals in seven western states as the Energy Manager of the Year.
When faced with the 2001 California energy crisis, Mr. Meek worked quickly and aggressively to help prevent blackouts in the city of Palo Alto. Under his supervision, Roche immediately accelerated its established Energy Reduction Program.
Mr. Meek along with Keith Sonberg, director, site services, provided key management
support to ensure that the Palo Alto site set an example of proactive energy management and conservation. The group kept business moving forward while doing its share to conserve, as one of the largest energy customers in the City of Palo. Additionally, Mr. Meek worked with the City of Palo Alto Utilities to create important strategic management programs to help manage the summer energy shortage and prevent rolling blackouts. The elements of the partnership included:
- Participation in a City of Palo Alto Utilities pilot load curtailment program that enabled exemption from rolling blackouts in exchange for voluntary load reduction.
- A grant under the City of Palo Alto Commercial Advantage Program for energy equipment and systems upgrades. The company also applied for and received a grant for demand reduction from the California Energy Commission.
These new efficiencies resulted in a 16 percent decrease in electricity consumption and a 23 percent decrease in natural gas usage for 2001 compared to 2000. The reduction in electricity for 2001 was 10,000,000 kilowatt hours and the natural gas reduction for the year was 610,000 therms, resulting in a $750,000 savings in utility costs.
Mr. Meek was recognized for being active in the local business community, and working with state officials as well as environmental groups to enhance resource management at Roche and share information. He was honored for his “vigilant, thoughtful and consistent efforts to implement cost effective resource management options at Roche,” as well as for superior service to the Association.
Henry Buffalow, Buffalo's Facilities Services — Milpitas
Energy Engineer of the Year
Henry Buffalow is the owner and manager of Buffalo's Facilities Group, Inc., a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) mechanical-electrical contractor located in Milpitas.
With more than 30 years experience in the HVAC industry and facilities management, his companies have designed and installed a wide variety of systems.
Mr. Buffalow’s most recent project included replacing an Andover building automation system that was obsolete and unreliable, with the Invensys-Tridium control system. This system enables the company to monitor and control the entire system from its offices or any place with internet access. Additionally, a solar compensated supply air reset was installed along with hot water reset. Since the amount of cooling required was directly dependent on the position of the sun, a unique solar compensation system was devised to modify the supply air temperature based on solar exposure and outside ambient temperature. The 1.8 million BTUH boiler was modified to include an outside air reset and a Microtherm flame control system. The combination has resulted in gas consumption savings of more than 40 percent.
The combination of modulating economizer, solar compensated supply air reset and variable frequency drive (VFD) control of fans has resulted in approximately 25-30 percent reductions in KWH. Peak demand has remained steady.
The project, originally funded by the owner, has recently been approved for rebate funds under the PG&E 2002 Non-Residential Standard Performance Contract Program. Since its inception, the project has resulted in energy savings, better system control, early detection of problems, and less wear on mechanical systems.
George Koshy, Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus – Mountain View
Corporate Energy Management Award
With more than 1,600 employees, Microsoft's Silicon Valley Campus was designed and executed with state of the art energy conservation measures Energy upgrades made under Mr. Koshy's supervision included:
- The adjustment of HVAC setbacks and schedules for optimum use, raising the supply air set points by 2F, and compensating labs by higher volumes of air. All these adjustments reduced cooling load and re-heat requirements.
- Placing complete common area lighting on optimum use schedules.
- Providing all campus occupants — offices, restrooms, storage, cable rooms and randomly occupied areas — with occupancy sensor controlled power strips. This ensured that at least 50 percent of their individual office devices were turned off every time they left for any extended period of time.
- Replacing incandescent lamps with fluorescent energy efficient fixtures where possible.
- Replacing all beverage coolers with dual door single compressor units campus-wide, resulting in significant energy savings.
- Programming the building management system to create different thresholds of usage depending on consumption criteria. As a result of the changes made to the facility's lighting, natural gas consumption was reduced by 145,968 therms resulting in utility savings of $96,000 and electric consumption was reduced by 450,000 KWH resulting in savings of $490,000.
Gilbert Masters, Ph.D., Stanford University – Palo Alto
Energy Professional Development Award
As a recently retired professor from Stanford University, Dr. Gilbert Masters influenced thousands of students through his classes on energy conservation. He not only made uncountable personal contributions to the field as an author, teacher, and mentor but also inspired the contributions of hundreds of other energy engineers.
During his time as a Stanford professor, Dr. Masters recognized the energy efforts being made by different areas of the university and attempted to make a connection between them. As a result, Dr. Masters used his status to help push energy initiatives with upper level administrators and helped bridge the gap between the facilities and academic departments. Additionally, he attended meetings to help make a stronger case for energy features in new university construction and building retrofits. This was in addition to his time spent teaching classes, meeting with students and actively publishing.
Even in retirement, Dr. Masters continues to serve as the center of a vital network of
energy and environmental professionals in the Silicon Valley and Bay Area who look to him for the latest information on energy events, jobs, and announcements about innovations and new standards for best practice.
Julie Phillips, DeAnza/Foothill College – Los Altos Hills
Regional Environmental Professional of the Year Award
Julie Phillips, environmental studies program coordinator, has worked consistently and productively over the last decade to provide cutting edge design, technology and fiscal resources to Foothill-DeAnza Community College District. Her work has influenced and inspired the students in her classes, design professionals, local industrial leaders in Silicon Valley, and state legislators.
Ms. Phillips provided the foundation work that became statewide efficiency legislation for California's 108 Community Colleges (CCC). The CCC, the largest education institution in the world, is comprised of approximately 50 million square feet of facilities, serving four million students.
Ms. Phillips has been instrumental in obtaining $5.25 million in grant funding for the endowment and new construction of Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies at DeAnza. The Kirsch Foundation focuses on changes in energy policy and pursues activities that support cutting-edge environmental pursuits. Once constructed, the Kirsch center is projected to be the most efficient school building in the state of California, at 50 percent below current Title 24. (Those projections are based on calculations by Donald Aiken, Ph.D. and Tom Watson of Arup based in San Francisco, California. Ecological design provided by Van der Ryn).
In addition, Ms. Phillips has contributed to the development of a model board policy, currently making its way through the CCC board of governors for approval. The program will encourage the adoption of energy efficient board policies by all 108 California campuses.
Association of Energy Engineers
The Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) is an international organization with the mission of promoting scientific and educational interests of energy industry professionals. The organization works to promote activities designed to encourage economy and efficiency in industry.
To learn more about the AEE 2003 Silicon Valley awards visit www.aeesiliconvalley.org or contact Virginia Waik at 650-329-2168.
